Fig. 4. Life cycle environmental impacts and share of per capita carrying capacity required by digital content consumption considering 2030 electricity generation scenarios compatible with limiting global warming to 3.5 °C, 2 °C, and 1.5 °C.

Impacts for a user archetype representing the global average consumption patterns across all Internet users. Only the most critical impact categories are displayed: a climate change, b freshwater eutrophication, c marine eutrophication, d particulate matter formation, e freshwater ecotoxicity, and f mineral and metal resources use (fossil resources use is omitted since it is strongly connected with the climate change category). For more detailed information on the impact assessment methods used and their robustness and the corresponding carrying capacities, see “Methods” section and Supplementary Table 8. CPE customer premise equipment.